Little Trip to Bali Complete

I forgot to do a post about the completion of this baby quilt called Trip to Bali. I did get it done about 4 weeks ago, took the pictures, and put it away.  I had no idea what I was going to do with the completed quilt.  I don't have any babies in my life, none, zip, zero, zilch.  I'm sure you are getting the idea.  

This is a picture of the completed top all laid out flat.  I looks like the elephants are floating in one big circle.  

Some close ups of the center and the elephants, both above and below picture.

For the backing, I used the same fabric that I did for the background on the front.  Then, I chose a dark batik for the binding.  

My daughter in law's sister had a baby boy at the end of March, and my DIL made a baby quilt in blue elephants prints, so she asked if she could also give her this one to match the elephant theme.  So off it went to a wonderful new baby boy! 

Warmest...

"Little Trip to Bali"

I have had this as a UFO for about 4 years.  I was working at a local quilt shop, and saw this in the book, "Keepsake Baby Quilts from Scraps"by Julie Higgins from Clotilde.com.  (See I was liking scrappy quilts for some time now!)

It was my first time using batiks, so I ended up buying lots of fat quarters, and a charm pack.  

I had all of the elephant blocks appliquéd, and the center blocks all cut out.  I went ahead and assembled the center blocks and then went on to make the top.  I also used a batik for the background, which can be hard to find the lighter colors.  

I now have it sandwiched and pinned and working on the quilting.  So far I have done cross hatching in the center, as the blocks are on point.

I chose to do shadow quilting around the elephants.  There are twelve of them, and this part is taking longer than I expected.

Then there were the blank corner blocks and the blank blocks in between the elephant blocks that I needed to do some kind of quilting, as that was lots of big spaces.  

So I took the original stencils of the elephant, and outlined it on each block and just did a stitching around the outline.  

It's a little hard to see when taking pictures, but it finished out these blank spaces just perfect.

I have about three elephants to do the shadow quilting, and then I will be able to get it bound and another one will be completed.

I'll be back with finished pictures in a few days.  

Warmest...

Finding Memories

It was necessary to go through my hope chest today, and in doing so, I came across a lot of memories.  Although, I don't have any recollection of this quilt, it was my baby crib quilt, made by my great grandmother.  She did quilt a lot, but she did manage to make a baby quilt for each of her grand children and great grandchildren.  It is all hand stitched, the quilting is tied with white yarn, and the backing comes forward to form a border/binding.  Don't panic about the white spots, that's just the sun shining on the quilt through the leaves of my backyard tree.

The simplicity of this quilt is what makes it so endearing.  A relic of its time, when things were slower, and simple, almost plain.  But the plain pattern and fabric is what makes it so beautiful.  This is a close up of the some of the fabrics used, and the white yarn used to tie the quilt together.

You can see here, in the next few pictures, my great grandmother, ran out of the print she was using and filled it in with what she had on hand.  There was not the option of running out and buying more to make it "perfect".

I noticed that she only ran out on the corner blocks, but if you stand back, (look at the first picture), you will see that the non-matching fabric doesn't take away for the quilt as a whole.  This only tells me that I have to stop trying to be so perfect in the quilts that I will be working on in the future and just get them done.

This is the backing print, which is a cute baby print, almost just like the reproduction 30's fabrics.  Although I was born in the late 50's, I am sure she had this in her stash from back then, because by the time I came along, my Great Grandma was in her 80's, and nearly blind, so she had to use what she had from when she used to sew for all her children in the early 1900's.  She did travel in a covered wagon from Kansas to Oregon when she was a child and sewed all of her clothes, and then later her own family clothes.  So, I am honored to have a quilt made by her, by hand, with little eyesight to add to my memories.

PS  She was still alive when I was born, but died before I could remember her.  I do have pictures of her though when I was a baby and a small child.

In loving memory of Amanda Jane Marsden

Four Generations from L to R:

Amanda J Marsden

Marvis K Merrifield

Janet L Steele

Renee L Steele-Smith

Warmest...

Small Projects Progress

Notice:  This is another long post with lots of pictures.

The wrist splints are coming off today, so I will be able to get back to some serious sewing next week.  In the mean time, I have been able to maneuver enough to get some small projects completed on my clients orders.

But, I have to first tell you that while I was working on these small projects, I was busy harvesting our Roma tomatoes from the garden.  I have run out of freezer space for the tomato puree I have been making, and the tomatoes do not ripen enough at once to do a batch of canning, so I went to drying them.  Not exactly like "sun dried" tomatoes, but good enough for saving and using this winter.   I had a few pieces that did not totally dry, so I threw them in a pot with a small amount of water, and made some three bean chili for dinner last night.  Easy peasy!

This is my second jar of the dried Romas.  I still have another batch on the vines out in the garden, but will get to those next week.

Moving on to the sewing projects:

Here is the double college team baby quilt I posted about here.  The client wanted one college team on one side and another team on the other.  In this case, one side is the Nebraska Cornhuskers, and the other side is the North Carolina Tar Heels.  (I even looked  up what a Tar Heels was, and found out that this from Wikipedia:The exact etymology of the nickname is unknown, but most folklore believe its roots come from the fact that tar, pitch, and turpentine created from the vast pine forests were some of North Carolina's most important exports early in the state's history. For a time after the Civil War, the name Tar Heel was derogatory, but it was later reappropriated by the people of North Carolina.^[1]

Because the exact history of the term is unknown, a number of legends have developed to explain it. One such legend claims it to be a nickname given during the U.S. Civil War, because of the state's importance on the Confederate side, and the fact that the troops "stuck to their ranks like they had tar on their heels".^[2] )  One should know what it is they are working on, right?

The client is delighted, I am delighted, and it is off in the mail to the mother's baby shower.

During this whole interaction with the client, and ordering the fabric for each team, one of the first fabrics picked was the wrong type of fabric, meaning it was fleece.  So, since it wasn't going to be used in this quilt, I went ahead and made a couple of baby blankets and put them on my Etsy site.  If you are interested, just click on the upper right sidebar Etsy icon, and it will take you directly to my Etsy site.

Another client wants me to make her a set of college themed potholders representing the University of Oregon Ducks.  She also wants nine more sets representing the different holidays such as Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day, Fourth of July, etc.  Originally she has just asked for the U of O set of potholders, so I have done those first and they went out in the mail today.  I will be working on the rest of the sets in a couple of weeks, as I have John Q's quilt that needs to be quilted.

I also finished one of the pillow shams that will go with John Q's quilt, and I will be working on the other one today.

I kept it simple in the binding of the outer case, opting not to do a flange or ruffle, the customer is just not that kind of a person.  The back closure is just a simple envelope type, making it easy to get the pillows in and out.

Lastly, I finished the "marble" bags for the sling shot's that my dad had made (more about that in this post), but I didn't get any pictures before mailing them off to the client.  My dad had made a couple of sling shots for his neighbor, and the neighbor wants the bags to hold the marbles.

Warmest...

Harvest Season

I normally would have done three to five posts about all that I am doing, but I just haven't had the time to get to writing about it each day, so that is why this post is so long.  Bear with me...

Yes, I have been absent, only because it is fall and that means it is harvest season for all kinds of things.  More tomatoes being made into stewed quarts, about 12 so far this year and the tomatoes are still ripening.  I have had better seasons, but I missed about 6 weeks of spring and summer out of town, so I think this is pretty good so far.

We also roasted all of our green chili that we grew and ended up with about two quarts off of one plant.  I plan on planting more next year, as we use them a lot in our cooking.  We are originally from Albuquerque, and I have smuggled green and red chili home when I visit.  It would be so much better if I could grow enough here at home.

Then, two days ago, my neighbor called and asked if I wanted some plums.   Absolutely!  So I picked a bucket came home and put them in the dehydrator.  They came out so wonderful that I went over and asked to buy some more from her, and she said to pick all I wanted.  Should never say that to me!  So I am on my third buck, and third round of drying them in the dehydrator.  My husband and I eat lots of dried fruit and nuts while doing our trade shows, so I am getting all that I can get done for us.

This is the before picture:

 And this is the after picture:

They don't look to pretty, but they are 100% all natural and taste so much better than any boughten dried fruit.

I have done over 500 plums so far, and plan on doing another 250 or so, which is about 1500 dried pieces!  Wonderful! Awesome!

But I have been doing a little bit of sewing here and there, when I can catch a few minutes.  Here are the things I have gotten done:

John's Quilt:

I laid out the layers to John's quilt and got it pinned it together.  It is ready to go to the sewing machine for stitching.  The first picture is a pillow sham that I quilted up.  You can see that I didn't stitch in each square, I grouped together sections of blocks to give it a more random look.  The client was very happy with the way the quilting is going to be done for this and the quilt.  

This shows the quilt all pinned up ready for the stitching.  

If you look closely you can see I have used two extra loft battings to make this quilt more of a comforter.  The client wanted it really thick!

Next, I received an order for three bags to hold marbles for some homemade slingshots that my dad had made for the grandsons.  This is the first one I made, and I am sending it off to see if it will work before I make the other two.

On a personal level, I made two blocks of 20 that I need to make the next round for the Chocolat Legacy UFO BOM that I am working on currently.  You can find more information about this BOM here.

Lastly, I also received a custom order for a baby quilt.  One side needs to use fabric print of the Nebraska Cornhuskers, and the other side needs to use fabric print from the North Carolina Tar Heels.  So after ordering the fabric online and receiving it yesterday, I went out to get the alternate colors to use on each side and also started cutting out the 5" squares.  I needed to do some "fussy cutting" from the print to get the correct icons in the quilt.

Here are the two prints with the coordinating fabric:

This shows the "fussy cutting" I did on the Nebraska Cornhuskers.  There are three different logos/icons prints in the fabric.  I needed a total of 40 five inch squares, and I got all of them out of a yard of fabric.

I will be fussy cutting out the blue North Carolina Tar Heels print this evening, and the rest of the coordinating fabric, so I can get this done and out the door by the end of next week.

Warmest...

A Different Baby Quilt

This is one of those times, when my husband comes home and says something like this, "Honey, you know blank blank from my office?  Well she having a baby, and it's due in September.  We (we?) need to make a baby quilt for her.  Oh, and we need to make it to match her new shotgun."

After much further discussion, and ordering special fabric from the manfacturing company, and doing a little design to make it simple, here is the result.  The fabric is pink camo from Realtree, the brown stripe is minkie, and the backing and binding is a dark thick flannel.  It is approximately 50" X 44" which is a good size, as it will be big enough for a while for the baby.

My hubby is happy, now I hope she will as happy with it.

More of the Same

I still have fabric from the "Simple Nature" line by Wilmington, enough to make at least 4 more baby quilts.  I cut out two and sewed the tops together yesterday.  I think for any future baby quilts from this line, I will change up the pattern so I don't have a "WalMart" stock of baby quilts.  I just want to be stocked up on baby quilts, because it seems as though I've needed one over the past few years and it was either not be able to give a baby quilt or do a mad rush to get one made.

Next will be sandwiching the batting and the backing then onto quilting the quilt.

I did finish this baby quilt by putting on the binding and hand sewing it down this evening.